Dads Read Too

JER: “ BOY + BOT ” by author Ame Dyckman and illustrator Dan Yaccarino does a great job demonstrating that people (or robots) might need different kinds of care and support, i.e. love languages, while still enjoying the same activities.  It takes a giant leap of emotional maturity to realize that what feels good or is nurturing to myself might not be nurturing to someone else.  Doctor’s have described this phenomenon to me when discussing toddler biting.  A biter will have a hard understanding the pain of a bite before they are themselves bitten.  Boy and Bot enjoyed collecting pine cones, walking on logs, skipping rocks, and rolling down hills.  But when Bot’s power button switched off, the boy was left confused wondering what went wrong.  The boy tried taking Bot home, feeding him applesauce, reading a story, and tucking Bot into bed.  When Bot found the boy asleep, he likewise took him home, gave him oil, read him an instruction manual, and was gett...

JER: “ THE WHEEL OF TIME : The Eye of the World (Book 1)” by Robert Jordan is the book series that got me into reading in High School.  Before this series, I would read what was assigned in school, but this book was the first that I couldn’t put down.  As my kids got older, I was excited about the potential of being able to re-read the series with or to them, and I am extremely happy that my oldest ended up enjoying it, too, even more than I expected.  But more than anything, I hope they find that first book that they want to stay up late to finish, find the character that they can see themselves in, and find the story that makes them feel seen.  It doesn’t have to be this book for them, as long as it is SOME BOOK.

JER: “Berry Song” by Michaela Goade is the best earth-conscientious book I have found, so far.  >”On an island at the edge of a wide, wild sea, Grandma shows me how to live on the land.” They gather herring-egg-laden-hemlock-branches, seaweed, salmon from the ocean, and berries from the forest. >”Grandma tells me, ‘We speak to the land’ . . . ‘As the land speaks to us,’ I say. . . . ‘We take care of the land . . .’ ‘As the land takes care of us.  Gunalchéesh,’ I say, giving thanks.”

JER: “The Book With No Pictures” by B.J. Novak is a clever book.  It had my 5-year-old giggling and asking for more.  But it has its critics.  A Retired 2nd-Grade Teacher said she was “not a fan”, and I can understand why.  Usually the reader is control of the story, but this book effectively takes the reader hostage to entertain children. At one point the book opines: “Is this whole book A TRICK?  Can I stop reading, please?” The answer is a resounding “NO”.  

  JER: “MINA” by Matthew Forsythe is full of unexpected plot twists, which is surprising for a children’s book. “Mina lived in her own little world where nothing ever bothered her.  Except for one thing.” Her father is a bit eccentric, or perhaps eclectic.  He is always bringing home surprises, he collects “antique art”, and he met a band in the woods. But when he finds a “squirrel” in the woods, Mina begins to get worried.  Everything seemed to going fine until her father brought home two more “squirrels” . . .

JER: “ The Line in the Sand ” by Thao Lam is a very thought-provoking book that manages to pack lots of meaning into every page with only pictures. It brought to mind, for me, Jonathan Haidt’s “ The Righteous Mind ”: "People don't adopt their ideologies at random, or by soaking up whatever ideas are around them.  People whose genes gave them brains that get a special pleasure from novelty, variety, and diversity, while simultaneously being less sensitive to signs of threat, are predisposed (but not predestined) to become liberals.  They tend to develop certain 'characteristic adaptations' and 'life narratives' that make them resonate - unconsciously and intuitively - with the grand narratives told by political movements on the left (such as the liberal progress narrative). People whose genes give them brains with the opposite settings are predisposed, for the same reasons, to resonate with the grand narratives of the right (such as the Reagan narrative). Once p...